


The Unfinished

by Neyiea



Series: But you can't be free, 'cause I'm selfish, I'm obscene [9]
Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: M/M, Multiple Endings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-23
Updated: 2020-10-23
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:00:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27165577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neyiea/pseuds/Neyiea
Summary: The unfinished what-could-have-beens, back when I was thinking of giving this series multiple endings.
Relationships: Jerome Valeska/Bruce Wayne
Series: But you can't be free, 'cause I'm selfish, I'm obscene [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1472327
Comments: 12
Kudos: 90





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I actually put a decent amount of work into these, so I figured I'd post them in case anyone else was curious about the other ways I was thinking of ending this series. 
> 
> These are unfinished, very roughly edited, and since I don't always write from start to finish there will be pieces that aren't completely connected to each other, but hey, I guess you get to get a feel for my writing process this way?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is the longest (and spiciest, though I didn't add enough for me to bump this out of the T rating) of all the possible endings, so I figured this would be a strong start. 
> 
> x-x-x
> 
> Ra’s al Ghul—the man who promised to kill the people that Bruce loved right in front of him—is back from the dead.
> 
> Bruce is going to kill him again, whether he wants to die or not.

Bruce’s mind trips on events that should have never happened. His palm, even though the wound is no longer fresh, stings. He feels sick; anxiety and anger swirling together inside of him and leaving him exhausted from the strength of the emotions that have been running through him ever since his blood was used as a tool for resurrection. 

Ra’s al Ghul is back from the dead. Bruce had felt torn offering to kill him a second time, because he remembered keenly what the first time was like, but Ra’s had refused as if all of his goading and scheming and awful promises to force Bruce’s hand the first time were nothing. As if the act hadn’t left Bruce feeling shattered and unlike himself and so, so alone. As if it was all for naught. As if Bruce hadn’t thought himself unforgivable in the aftermath of breaking his one rule. 

And now Barbara, Tabitha, and Selina have driven away with the only weapon capable of returning his body to harmless dust and bone which Bruce would happily mail to the four corners of the Earth, may the pieces of him never be reunited again. 

He feels betrayed and used; it seeps deep into his bones and leaves him bereft of any good things. His hands slowly curl into fists, more to stop them from trembling than anything else. His palm stings again. He grits his teeth. 

Ra’s al Ghul—the man who promised to kill the people Bruce loved right in front of him—is back from the dead.

Bruce is going to kill him again, whether he wants to die or not.

He can’t risk it. He can’t take the chance. He’s going to have to break his one rule all over again.

But first, he needs the knife. He and Alfred aren’t enough to go against Barbara and Tabitha; maybe if Selina was on their side, but she’d thrown her cap in with the other group, and Bruce will have to put his feelings on that matter aside for now to focus on the bigger picture. He needs that knife back in his possession and he needs to track down Ra’s. He is likely not capable of getting either the weapon or the information he needs about his whereabouts by himself, and he doesn’t want Alfred to get hurt helping him. 

Thankfully Alfred and Selina are not the only people who would willingly assist Bruce on dangerous errands.

And Jerome did promise him that they next time they had a date they could do something that Bruce wanted. 

Bruce feels his lips twitch in the faintest of smiles, and the wariness he has about killing Ra’s again begins to slowly fade away. Bruce cannot let Jerome get hurt because of him. Bruce cannot let Ra’s live not knowing if he would eventually act out the wretched oath he’d given before Bruce had stabbed him the first time. 

Bruce cannot let Jerome die. Bruce will not let Jerome die.

He’ll kill to make sure it doesn’t happen.

It’s a strange thing, letting himself step over an edge that he’s been balancing upon for years, dipping his toe into the dark as if to test the waters. It’s a quick, easy appraisal, as if eventually preparing himself to plunge fully was always an inevitability. Between one breath and another he goes from feeling wretched about the idea of having to kill Ra’s again to knowing that it’s simply what he must do. It’s who he is. It’s who he’s meant to become. It was what Ra’s wanted.

It’s what Jerome wants, too.

Bruce closes his eyes, and the anxiety and anger inside of him begin to settle.

A path that he’s feared for the longest time has opened before him, and he’s resolved to see it through to the bitter end. It’s going to change him, he knows it will, but there was one person in his life who would always love Bruce no matter what, and that’s enough to quiet the side of him that’s already trying to resist the task ahead. 

x-x-x

Finding where Jerome is hiding out is easy enough; Bruce has kept up his information gathering after the Arkham breakout, and there were a certain collection of people—Jonathan Crane and Jervis Tetch, most notably—that he’s kept a close eye on due to their association with Jerome. His continuous—almost neurotic—vigilance serves him well, because he just has to figure out days where Scarecrow and Mad Hatter were spotted within a few city blocks of each other around the same time, and the rest snaps into place.

Sneaking into Jerome’s hideout is a little bit harder, since Bruce can’t exactly barge in through the front door, but he’s had more than enough experience sneaking into places by now that it’s more exhilarating than it is truly difficult.

And watching Jerome startle when Bruce slips in through his window is worth all the trouble, anyways.

“Fuck, Bruce,” Jerome rasps, seeming torn between laughter and the lingering effects of shock. “Would it kill you to warn a guy before you pop in from out of nowhere?” He finally gives into the laughter, eyes glinting with amusement. “Not that I’m complaining about being sought out.” He stands and crosses the room quickly, arms spreading wide, and Bruce does not resist the urge to rush towards him. “How’d you manage to get in here, though? I’m five floors up.”

Bruce leans against him, pressing his face into the crook of Jerome’s neck. “It’s a secret,” he says, holding Jerome a little too tight for Jerome to not figure out that something was going on.

“Another trick up your sleeve, right, gotcha.” His hands trail up and down Bruce’s back, he presses a kiss against Bruce’s temple.

Bruce is never, never, never going to let Ra’s hurt him.

He’ll never let anyone hurt Jerome. Never again.

He steps back slightly, hands digging into the fabric of Jerome’s shirt.

“I needed to see you.”

“I figured, what with you dropping in unannounced and all.” Jerome takes his hands and leads him over to an old wooden table separating a pair of mismatched chairs. “Got something on your mind, darlin’?” He asks as he guides Bruce into a seat before sitting down across from him.

Bruce has murder on his mind, but even if he’s accepted it it’s very, very difficult to the find the words to say such a thing out loud. 

“I have a favour to ask,” he begins stiltedly, hands folding together uneasily on the tabletop. 

“A favour?” Jerome drawls, interest piquing. “Is it a sexy favour?”

Bruce frowns at him, and Jerome wisely schools his expression into something more serious.

“I need your help finding someone. A man named Ra’s al Ghul,” Bruce tells him, even though Jerome is unaware of the weight and meaning behind the name. “He’s the leader of something called The League of Shadows. He’s also known as The Demon’s Head.”

Jerome’s head tilts, gaze curious and not at all dismissive. Although finding someone was far from his typical modus operandi—unless, of course, that someone in question was Bruce—Bruce had been sure that the mere act of Bruce asking him for help would get the wheels of his mind turning with ideas to fulfil whatever it was Bruce requested of him. 

“And why are you so sure that I’ll be able to help you find him?”

“Jerome, you have an extensive network of people who love to act as your personal spies—and please don’t pretend that you’ve never had anyone watching the inner workings of the GCPD, or Arkham, or _me._ ” He says quickly before Jerome can claim that his lunatics and idiots simply weren’t spy material. “You must have, to have found me so quickly that time you broke out for one night. I know that you can find him for me.”

“Okay,” Jerome concedes easily, “so maybe I can find him. But I’ve got to say, I’m starting to get pretty curious about what this is all about. Care to fill me in?” He rests an elbow on the table and leans into his upright palm, raising his eyebrows pointedly. 

“It’s for.” Bruce’s thoughts flitter frantically, he’d made this speech to his own reflection a few times, just to be sure it went okay, but it’s different to say it in person. More difficult. “Our date. You promised me that we could do something that I wanted, remember?”

He knows what Jerome is going to ask. He knows what he’s going to eventually have to tell him; the terrible, undeniable truth. The truth that had torn Bruce up from the inside, the truth that had made shame burn within him, the truth that he could never run away from. Even though he’s dipped his toe into the dark pool beneath the ledge he’s balanced on top of, he still feels guilty about what Ra’s had forced him to do the first time that Bruce killed him. 

“Okay. I’ll bite.” Jerome leans back into his chair, streching his legs out beneath the table and affectionately hooking his feet around Bruce’s ankles. “A lovely little date; just you, me, and some random man.”

“And a knife that we’re going to need to steal from Barbara Kean and Tabitha Galavan,” Bruce adds, too wound up to sound blasé about it.

Jerome’s eyes widen briefly before they narrow in on him. Bruce can see intrigue and delight sparking to life.

“A knife,” Jerome muses, fingers folding together. “That we’re going to need to steal from my old _buddies?_ ”

“It’s a very special knife.”

“And what, exactly, are we going to do with this very special knife?” Jerome’s tone isn’t nearly as interested as it would be if he thought Bruce was planning what Bruce is actually planning. Maybe he thinks Bruce is roping him into some kind of virtuous mission to reunite a man with his rightful property. It would be nice if Bruce could allow him to think that. But he can’t.

He needs to kill Ra’s al Ghul again. And he needs Jerome to know, even if it wasn’t very long ago that he would have never wanted Jerome to know.

“You don’t need to do anything,” he says, and he can hear his voice waver. Thinking it is one thing. Saying it out loud is another. He clenches his eyes shut and steps deeper into the dark. “I’m going to use it to kill him.”

Silence.

Bruce opens one eye.

Jerome is staring at him.

“Kill. Him.” Jerome echoes in what seems to be shock, then a bright, manic light sparks inside of him as he surges forward in his seat. “Kill him?” He repeats ecstatically. 

“Yes.” Bruce replies, grave in the face of Jerome’s swiftly building excitement. “Again.”

“Again?” Jerome’s hands slap against the table as he stands up, and he leans in so close that Bruce almost thinks he means to kiss him. Maybe he does mean to kiss him. He seems so full of restless energy that it wouldn’t surprise Bruce in the slightest if he started something right now. “What do you mean, _again?_ As in kill him, _again?!_ ”

“You were brought back from the dead, Jerome, is it so hard to believe that others can be, too?”

“That is obviously not what I am talking about, Bruce!” Jerome’s hands cradle his face. Jerome’s fever-bright eyes bore into his. “You killed someone and you never even _told me?!_ ”

“I did,” Bruce protests, averting his eyes. “I just worded it in a different way.”

“How differently could you possibly have worded this that you kept me from figuring—” Jerome stops abruptly, eyes flickering as his mind rewinds. “When you said that you destroyed someone,” Jerome whispers, breath huffing against Bruce’s mouth. “I thought that was just you being dramatic and self-reproaching! Oh, Brucie.” He sounds adoring and breathless. “How did it feel?”

“Awful,” Bruce replies bluntly, because it had back then, and he doesn’t want Jerome’s thoughts running away with the belief that Bruce had enjoyed it the first time. What was supposed to be a one-time thing unfortunately had to be repeated because Ra’s al Ghul’s followers refused to let him stay dead, and then Ra’s al Ghul refused to return to his grave peacefully. “Full of anger and self-hatred. So much that I started isolating myself. So much that I lost sight of the things that mattered most to me. So much that I began to lose myself.”

“When you were drinking your teenaged troubles away,” Jerome says under his breath. “Fuck, I can’t believe that I missed this.” His hands drop away from Bruce’s face to settle over his hands. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me when I had you pinned against that fire escape door!”

“Jerome—”

“I would have given you so much attention, baby doll,” Jerome murmurs frantically. “I would have made you see stars behind your closed eyes.” He leans down and finally gives in to his obvious urge to shower Bruce’s face with kisses, voice muffling as he continues to speak even when his lips are pressed against Bruce’s skin. “I would have given you the entire fucking _world_. Would have stayed with you, would have left Arkham behind for you, would have made you do it again so that I could watch.”

“Jerome.” Bruce stops short for a moment when Jerome’s lips slide against his mouth. “I didn’t—I didn’t want to do it, back then.”

“Then why did you?” Jerome’s hands grip at his own, lifting them up to his mouth to press kisses against Bruce’s palms. “Self-defense? It doesn’t really count if it was self-defense, but I’ll let you get away with it because the idea of you _stabbing someone_ gets me all hot and bothered.” His lips skim across Bruce’s knuckles adoringly. 

Jerome, maybe, isn’t expecting a direct answer, but Bruce decides to give him one.

Jerome is the reason why Bruce is so determined to kill Ra’s again anyways.

Bruce loved Jerome, and Ra’s once vowed that he’d return to kill whoever Bruce loved, hence the current predicament. Bruce could not stop Jerome from conducting mad schemes, and he could not fully draw his attention away from the destruction that he longed to create, but he would always protect him to the best of his ability. 

He doesn’t want Jerome to get hurt, especially not because of his attachment to him.

Bruce grips back at Jerome’s hands, linking their fingers, pulling Jerome closer. He presses soft, loving kisses of his own against Jerome’s knuckles as Jerome watches him like Bruce is the only thing on Earth worth paying attention to. 

“He told me that he would kill the people who I loved right in front of me. That he’d leave me alone for a while, but he’d be back someday in the future to destroy whatever family I might have made for myself. You know—you know how I get when the people I love are threatened,” his voice becomes strained. “You know that that’s my biggest weak spot, you’ve taken advantage of it often enough.”

“Yeah,” Jerome breathes heavily. “But you never killed me for it. You never even really tried, after that first time.”

“I promised myself that I wouldn’t kill after I almost lost myself in that maze. I broke that promise, and it was almost enough to ruin me, but I’ll break it again if it means I don’t have to worry that there’s another target on your back.”

Jerome is silent for a moment, his fingers being to twitch restlessly.

“You’re going to kill,” he begins, hushed and full of wonder, “for me?”

“I am,” Bruce promises, titling his head, letting his eyes fall shut. 

Jerome’s kiss is the greatest welcome that could have greeted Bruce as he is pulled even further from the light. He twists his hands into Jerome’s hair and presses back against his mouth, and his resolve fully settles onto that which he must do.

“You’re the family that I chose for myself, Jerome,” he utters when Jerome pulls away. “I’ll never let anything happen to you.”

“Even when you’re planning murder, it sounds like justice.” Jerome chuckles roughly. “I should probably just expect that by now. You’d never kill for fun, you’d only ever hurt people who deserved it. You’re so good, Bruce, I love that about you too, you know.”

Bruce stills, hands gripping Jerome’s.

“Murder is murder,” he says softly. “No matter the reason behind it.”

Jerome makes a noise like he disagrees, but then he’s kissing Bruce again, and Bruce’s hesitant worries about good and bad and light and dark are stripped away. 

x-x-x

Getting the knife is easy. Jerome is a wild-card who has never stuck to one particular kind of crime—he kidnaps and he murders and he bombs and he steals news vans—and it’s obvious that he holds grudges, so he’s able to play his sudden home invasion as if he’s dropping by for a grim visit to the sister of the man who murdered him and the woman who had been content to watch him die. Even with the Sisters of the League acting as Barbara’s guards, the explosives Jerome that had cheekily strapped to his own chest do their job in dissuading anyone from gutting him. 

It’s all very nerve-wracking; bet you thought you’d never see me again, bet you thought I’d never become this powerful, bet you thought I’d forgotten that _you let me be used as a pawn._

Meanwhile Bruce actually manages to _steal_ the re-forged knife without anyone being the wiser. 

There is a bit of bloodshed—not Jerome’s, though, which was all that really mattered—and afterwards when the blade is in Bruce’s hands he allows himself to imagine what it will be like to kill Ra’s again.

And then smash his remains to pieces and throw them to the wind to make sure he was never revived again.

“You do know how to have fun after all,” Jerome says, already elated at the rather minor crimes that they’d committed together. He can’t seem to stop moving; curling an arm over Bruce’s shoulders, nudging against him, pressing kisses against Bruce’s temple like he just can’t get enough. If he’s this excited by a bit of breaking and entering and theft, then his reaction to when Bruce actually kills is going to be almost overpoweringly impassioned. Bruce is actually kind of looking forward to it. “Practically went off without a hitch, too. Nice to have you working with me instead of against me.”

“What can I say?” Bruce turns his neck so that Jerome can actually press a kiss to his lips. “We make a good team, you and me.”

Jerome pauses for a moment, as if shocked to hear his own words from years ago quoted back at him, and then he laughs, delighted, and twists so that he can wrap both of his arms around Bruce’s shoulders and reel him in.

“Always knew we would,” he says between quick, frantic kisses. “Always knew it. Ever since the maze. I knew our time in there was a beginning and not an ending.”

Bruce lifts his free hand to Jerome’s cheek, heart full and mind buzzing, and Jerome’s frenzied kisses peter out to ones which linger. 

“It won’t be how you expect, when you watch me do this,” Bruce says against Jerome’s smiling mouth. He knows what Jerome wants to see, but Ra’s isn’t going to die in the way that a normal person would. “There won’t be any blood to stain my hands, for starters.”

“I’ll just imagine it, then,” Jerome tells him, winding a hand into Bruce’s hair.

Bruce imagines what it will be like to kill Ra’s again.

He smiles against Jerome’s mouth. 

Finding Ra’s is difficult, even with a network of spies loyally doing their leader’s bidding. For weeks Bruce worries that Ra’s has had premonitions about what Bruce has been planning and has decided to go into hiding and then Bruce is going to have to spend years chasing him down, leaving Gotham behind to follow any trace of him just so that he can finally put an end to him.

He hadn’t expected that anyone would find traces of Ra’s _still in Gotham_.

Why hadn’t he left for good? If he truly had visions of the future, then surely he knew that Bruce was coming for him. Was it a trap? Or…

Or had something changed, when he’d come back from the dead and Barbara had been the Demon’s Head? Had he not fully come into himself, had he left something behind?

Did he not realize that Bruce was hunting him?

“Where do you think you’ll stab him?”

“Wherever is closest, Jerome. I don’t think I can really plan out the particulars this far ahead.”

“Where do you want to stab him, then?”

“I suppose the heart would be the most poetic, even though if I just stabbed upward under his ribs—what are you doing?”

“Keep talking about stabbing him in the heart,” Jerome urges, falling to his knees. “Go on, don’t mind me.”

“Don’t—don’t mind you? Jerome, please, you’re making yourself very difficult to ignore right now.”

“Fuck, Jerome, Jerome.” His hands dig into red hair. “If this bastard actually could bleed on me I’d let you kiss me while it was still warm and slick because I know how much you want that, how much you want to see me with someone else’s blood on my hands and my face. If his body didn’t disintegrate we could—fuck, fuck—desecrate it toget—ahh—together. I won’t ever let him hurt you, no one is ever going to hurt you, Jay. I pro—promise.” He curls in on himself, trembling. “Jay, please, please.”

Jerome hums and teasingly slides a finger into Bruce, who comes almost immediately from the addition of penetration. When Jerome pulls back and looks up at him his eyes are nearly black. 

“Wanna open you up with my fingers and tongue and fuck you, Bruce. Can I, baby?”

“Of course.”

“Jay, my Jay,” he says fondly. “I’m glad that you’ll be with me.”

“I wouldn’t miss this for the whole world, Bruce. Not for anything.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This was going to be another Dark-ish Bruce ending, though less dark and accepting of it than the previous, and Jerome is a bit less open about how much this excites him even though, lbr, Bruce knows what's going on in his head. 
> 
> x-x-x
> 
> The first time Bruce kills someone, it's an accident.

It’s an accident.

Or rather, it’s instinct. 

A scheme, a scene, a monologue, a hostage. Bruce hadn’t even planned on coming to the party until he’d traced a few suspicious dealings back to the man who ended up trapped in his office with Jerome, Bruce acting as an unwitting witness because he’d wanted to corner the man to ask a few pointed questions. 

Jerome had been confident—all deadly poise and grace, unable to keep himself from glancing over at Bruce but thankfully able to resist the urge to wink at him—and he’d turned toward the window briefly and that’s when the man reached under his desk and started pulling out a gun of his own.

—a gun, a gun, a gun—

In a split-second Bruce remembered the stage, remembered Jerome’s fall, remembered the way dread had clawed at his insides. Bruce was instantly flooded with panic, time slowed to an awful crawl with a seemingly unavoidable end. Gordon had shot Jerome and it hadn’t been fatal, but this man wouldn’t take a chance. The gun was raising, raising, Jerome couldn’t see it, time began to flow normally, and Bruce—

—reacted on instinct, grabbing the closest sharp object and—

He couldn’t lose Jerome. He wouldn’t lose Jerome. He’d never let Jerome get burnt or shot or hurt again.

—he stabbed it into the man’s abdomen. It was too shallow, too shallow, the man was turning towards him and he was going to shoot Bruce and then he was going to shoot Jerome.

The letter-opener slid out of him and Bruce thrust it in again, again, inflicting as much damage as he could as quickly as he could until the man fell to his knees, then to the floor, his hands pressed into his injured side, choking on air, too breathless to scream.

Bruce is breathless, too. His mind is buzzing, his ears are ringing. His hand is wet with blood. His knees feel weak. The letter opener falls from his suddenly limp fingers. His heartbeat is pounding in his ears. He’s stabbed him, he’s stabbed him, he’s stabbed him—

Hands grasp his own, pull him over, pull him down. Hands force his to lay over the man’s heavily bleeding side. The man tries to push him away, but he’s too weak, so instead he fists his bloody hand in Bruce’s sweater, rasping out curses that Bruce can’t hear over the racket of his own wildly swirling thoughts. 

A familiar sound; hushed, steady, loving, rustles inside of his head and Bruce closes his eyes, trying to listen. 

“Already had blood on you,” Jerome’s voice is distorted, as if Bruce is listening to him from underwater. “We have to make it look like it was because you were trying to save him,” Jerome tells him quickly. His hands move away. Bruce opens his eyes to stare down at a growing pool of red, red, red—

“Bruce.” Hands clasp either side of Bruce’s face and Bruce finally comes back to himself. To what he’s done. “Listen to me, Bruce,” Jerome urges quickly. “You have to scream for help. When they come, tell them I did it.”

“But—but if I scream—”

“Look at how much he’s bleeding. He’s not going to be able to talk at all by the time anyone gets up here, and he’ll be dead before an ambulance can arrive.” Jerome forces his face up so that he can look him directly in the eyes. Bruce’s breath catches at what he sees burning there. “Now scream.”

Bruce does. 

He presses his hands against the man’s side and he screams as loud as he can while Jerome tucks the letter-opener—the murder weapon—inside of his jacket and rushes out the window. 

The bloody hand fisting in his sweater has gone limp by the time the first person runs into the room. By the time an ambulance has been called he’s already dead. 

He’s killed someone, he’s killed someone, he’s killed someone—

The blood is a brand against his hands, he’s shaking, he wishes Jerome were here. Jerome would hold him, make him feel better, shush him and praise him and—

A hand settles gently on his shoulder and Bruce startles, looking up at the woman who’d dialed 911.

“You did your best,” she tells him, mistaking the reason for the tears on his face. “You did your best.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I wanted a kind of redeemed Jerome ending. I imagined that after this Bruce would actually fight to get him out of Arkham very quickly while using the corrupt system to his advantage. Jerome and Jeremiah would have a few visits and start to figure things out between them. Then as soon as Jerome is out of Arkham Bruce brings him along as he goes to train to become Batman, and Jerome possibly becomes The Jokester, a la Earth-3. Crime fighting husbands. <3 Jeremiah and Alfred hang out in the Batcave while they're off doing their thing.
> 
> Also I was very happy to finally transcribe the joke from The Killing Joke into a fic. May attempt to do it again someday for a work I can actually finish.
> 
> x-x-x
> 
> Jerome wakes up in a hospital after a scheme gone wrong.

“This ain’t Arkham,” he rasps.

“No,” Bruce tells him, voice shaky. “It’s Gotham General. You were in the ICU for two weeks, they only just moved you to a Step Down Unit.”

“I’m in the hospital…” Ha, he’s never actually been in a medical hospital, or at least he can’t remember it. “And they’re allowing you to visit me?”

“I’ve been bribing the nurses. The ones in the ICU thought I wanted to make sure the Maniax didn’t get their hands on you. I think these ones are under the impression that I might want to kill you and make it look like an accident.”

A laugh gets caught in Jerome’s throat, and it turns into a rasping cough. His throat feels raw and scratchy.

“I’ve practically been living here for two weeks. I think—I think Alfred has to have some idea of what’s going on, but he’s waiting for me to be the one to tell him, and Detective Gordon… He knows that I’ve been here, too, he’s going to start figuring things out. I was so scared, Jerome. I’m still scared. And the worst part isn’t just that I feel like they’re going to take you away from me once you’re medically stable. The worst part is that you’re here in the first place. Do you even remember what happened?”

“Barely.”

“Jerome.” His hands are shaking. Everything about him is shaking. Jerome wishes he had the strength to pet his hair and dry his tears. “You can’t have me if you’re dead.”

Jerome licks his lips. “There are two guys in a lunatic asylum, and one night, they decide they’re going to escape. They get up onto the roof, and there, just across this narrow gap, they see the rooftops of the town, stretching away in the moonlight… Stretching away to freedom. Now, the first guy.” Jerome squeezes Bruce’s hand. “He jumps right across with no problem. But his friend, his friend didn’t dare make the leap. Y’see… Y’see, he’s afraid of falling. So then, the first guy has an idea… He says ‘Hey! I have my flashlight with me! I’ll shine it across the gap between the buildings. You can walk along the beam and join me!’ But the second guy just shakes his head. He says…”

“What does he say, Jerome?”

“He says, ha, ‘What do you think I am? Crazy? You’d turn it off when I was halfway across!’” Chuckling makes his throat feel raw, but he can’t hold it back, even though it’s more from despair than amusement. 

“I don’t know if I follow,” Bruce says lowly. “Will you explain it to me?”

“If you have to explain a joke, then that means the joke isn’t funny,” Jerome tells him, chest tight. “That hurts my fragile self-esteem, y’know. Besides, you’re not the one following, obviously. You… You’re the first one.” Full of something bright and brilliant; hope and belief and goodness and other such fairy tales. Not even the dark, wild things inside of Bruce could fully overcome his valiant nature. “Stepping out onto moonbeams, protected by the light. I’m the one left behind.”

“Jerome… I wouldn’t turn the flashlight off when you were halfway across. You know that, right? You… You understand that, right?”

“I understand,” Jerome says.

“And if that promise wasn’t enough, then you must know that if you needed more than a beam of light to cross, I would find something to bridge the gap. If the light wasn’t enough, I would find other ways.”

“You would,” he agrees. “You’re the only one that would.”

“You’re not medically stable right now, but as soon as you are… You’ll be back there, in that awful place. I would keep you if I could. Jerome.” His hands grip, almost too tight. “It doesn’t matter what Gotham would think, I don’t care what they’d think. If I could—” His voice cracks. “If you let me, I would keep you. Do you understand?”

Jerome licks his lips, opening his mouth for his usual response to such a question, but Bruce cuts him off.

“Because I love you.”

“I love you, I love you, and I’m sorry that I haven’t said it more. Sometimes it was all I could think to say, not even knowing if you could hear me, not even knowing if you’d ever wake up or if something would happen and I’d never get the chance to say it to you again. Jerome, I can’t—I can’t even think about the possibility of losing you without feeling my heart start to break. You’re the only one—you’re the only one who _knows me_ completely and _accepts me_ completely. I couldn’t bear to lose you. Not to anything. Not to anyone. Not to Arkham or the police or another villain or one of your schemes gone wrong. But I can’t stop you from going back to Arkham, I can’t stop them from taking you back, but… Jerome. Jerome, I wouldn’t turn the flashlight off when you were halfway across.”

“You’re not talking about a breakout,” he murmurs, already certain of it. “Are you?”

“They’re going to take you back,” Bruce tells him, voice wavering. “But I’ll visit you every day. I’ll do everything that I can,” he promises. “Oswald Cobblepot once managed to get out of Arkham with a slip of paper saying that he was cured. With a little bit of time, and some care from people who aren’t an actual shame to their professions, maybe you could do the same. Maybe… Maybe you could stay out. There wouldn’t need to be a constant back and forth. You could get out, and stay out.”

Jerome would openly scoff at the notion—rehabilitation—if it were literally anyone except for Bruce suggesting it. Even though it’s Bruce suggesting it he can’t find it within himself to fake enthusiasm. Bruce reads his mood easily, and his hands start to tremble again.

Jerome hates it when Bruce is unhappy.

“And then what?” His voice is harsher than he means it to be, and he feels an awful stab of guilt at the way Bruce averts his eyes. “Then what?” He repeats, softer, and Bruce raises his gaze.

“And then you’ll stay with me.” Bruce’s teary, red rimmed eyes are impossible to look away from. “Would it really be so bad, to be kept by me?”

Kept, his mind echoes, and he thinks of walls—metal and wood and brick—and fences and awful people who he couldn’t seem to escape from. 

Kept, he thinks of Bruce, welcoming arms and soft kisses and genuine care.

“No,” he admits softly. “If I was to be kept by anyone, it would have to be you. You know I’d just escape, otherwise.” 

“Do you mean it?” Bruce’s voice cracks. Jerome wonders just how many hours he’s sat at Jerome’s bedside, crying while Jerome was unable to comfort him. “Will you try?”

The world was full of people who had never and would never risk helping him. The world was full of people who wouldn’t care if Jerome died or if he rotted in a cell for the rest of his life as long he was no longer causing trouble. The world was full of people who would have seen him struggle and looked the other way.

But that wasn’t who Bruce was, that wasn’t _what_ Bruce was. 

Something bright. Something brilliant. Something good enough that even Jerome sometimes felt his breath catch looking upon it. 

“I’ll try. For you.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The ultra-rare possibly ot3 ending, lol. Jerome and Bruce are such soulmates in this series, so I wasn't even sure if I wanted Jerome to be looking too hard into it and Jeremiah really does just want Bruce as a best friend, or if something more would happen as these two both worked together on helping Bruce reach his dark potential. I was kinda gonna figure it out as I went. 
> 
> x-x-x
> 
> Jeremiah has been on borrowed time ever since he dodged Jerome's first trap.
> 
> Jerome sprays him in person.

“We could be a family again,” Jerome tells him. “Did you ever miss me at all, after you left?”

Jeremiah hesitates, and that’s telling enough. 

If Jerome were good—if Jeremiah hadn’t run away, hadn’t left him behind, hadn’t made his life even worse than it had been—he might have left it at that. But… Jerome has been patient when it comes to Bruce’s ever shifting darkness—rising and falling like a beautiful, violent tide—and Jeremiah has been on borrowed time ever since he didn’t open Jerome’s special package.

He takes out a spray canister that Jonathan had whipped up just for him and releases a gust of gas right into Jeremiah’s horrified face.

“You—” Jeremiah steps back, too late, legs wobbly. “You—” His expression twists, morphing between fear and shock with flashes of something else as a smile fitfully tries to tug the corner of his lips upwards. “Why would you—” He falls to his knees, he covers his face, his shoulders are shaking. “Why—”

“Because I missed you,” Jerome says, lowering himself to the floor beside him. He pulls Jeremiah’s hands away from his face and sees his wide smile. “And because you deserved it.”

Both as a punishment, and as a gift. 

Jeremiah keels over completely, and Jerome runs a hand through his hair as he begins to scream.

“The first part is the worst,” he says lowly. “It won’t always feel like this.”

Jeremiah chokes on his name, he begins to curl in on himself, he presses a shaking hand to his mouth as wild laughter replaces the screaming. The sound slips through his fingers, eerie in the quiet.

“Don’t try to fight it, Miah. Those parts of yourself that you try to hide? Let them out. You won’t lose anything by letting it out,” Jerome promises. “All you can do is gain.”

“I can’t be like you,” Jeremiah rasps. Tears are streaming out of his eyes. He’s suffering, but it’s part of his necessary atonement. After this, Jerome knows that they’ll be able to fully understand each other again. They could be a family again. “I can’t be like you.”

“You are, don’t fight it, it’s all going to be okay. I’m here.”

Jeremiah presses against his hand. A mad giggle bursts past his lips. Jeremiah’s teeth clack together and his shoulders start shaking at the force it takes to hold it back. When it subsides he lays limp against Jerome, his limbs occasionally jerking.

“He’ll hate me,” he says weakly. The colour is starting to fade from his skin. “He’s my only friend. He’ll hate me.”

Ah.

Jerome understands a little better.

“Bruce won’t hate you,” Jerome says as his brother’s shoulders start to shake again. “I promise.”

Jeremiah cannot hold back the laughter anymore. It goes on and on, loud and unhinged, until his body is too exhausted to continue.

Jerome is with him through it all.

“A maze? Boring.”

“That’s because you can’t stand order and organization. What would you do with all these bombs?”

Jerome thinks back to his special night where all the lights went out; the madness and depravity that followed.

“I’d paint the town crazy.”

“He could be so strong,” Jeremiah says lowly. “Have you ever thought about pushing him the way that you pushed me?”

“Less of a push,” Jerome tells him. “More like a gentle, guiding hand.”

“And you think that will be enough?”

“It will.”

And maybe it will be even easier, now, because Jerome is not the only one who Bruce cares about who will want him to sink into the dark. Bruce is friends with Jeremiah, and they’ll only be able to become closer when Bruce realizes that Jeremiah, too, can understand Bruce in a way that very few people ever have.

When Bruce realizes that Jeremiah would want to remain friends no matter what. That Jeremiah wouldn’t abandon him after learning about the things that Bruce was capable of when his temper flared up.

Jerome is close enough to hear Bruce’s breath hitch when Jeremiah pulls out a handkerchief to wipe away the blood, smearing makeup with it and revealing his face; even more ashen and unnatural than Jerome’s became after his resurrection. 

Jerome leans in to whisper in his ear. “I’m sorry that you couldn’t protect him from me like you wanted to, darlin’, but on the bright side you won’t have to try any more. Jeremiah and I have reached an understanding. We’re a family, again.”

Bruce looks at him, and Jerome can see indecision flashing in his eyes. He feels guilty that he hadn’t been able to stop Jerome’s plan, but he wasn’t angry enough about it to lash out. He probably felt bad about that, too. Poor, precious boy, Jerome wants to give him the entire world.

“What are you whispering about over there?” Jeremiah’s voice crackles between them, and Bruce’s gaze turns towards him again.

“Jeremiah,” he says lowly, stiltedly, full of emotion. “I’m sorry that I couldn’t save you.”

So earnest. So genuine. Jerome watches his brother’s expression flicker, as if surprised that Bruce would feel sorry for such a thing when the outcome was something so spectacular. Jeremiah didn’t know Bruce as well as Jerome did, though. Jeremiah didn’t know how much Bruce wanted to save people and help people, even people who no one else would bother with.

Bruce is the closest thing to a hero that this mad city has ever had. 

Even when he accepts the darkness within, he’ll be the closest thing to a hero; his anger would lash out at the worst kinds of people.

Except for Jerome. Except for Jeremiah. 

“There’s no need to be sorry.” In his attempt to sound unaffected by Bruce’s apology he sounds cold, almost on the verge of being patronizing, and Jerome can feel the moment that Bruce begins to tense at the lack of his usual warmth. “I am as I was meant to be.”

Jerome wants to slap a hand over his face.

Should have just accepted the apology, he thinks, caught between amusement and exasperation. Bruce is going to get the wrong idea.

Bruce, as expected, gets _the wrong idea._

“Jeremiah,” Bruce’s voice is faint, strangely timid, but Jeremiah has probably never sounded like that—distant, unemotional—when speaking to him. He looks sad. Jerome hates it when he looks sad. Jeremiah must hate it, too, because the cool look that he’s painted over his face splinters at the sound of his name being spoken by Bruce in such a way. “Are we—are we still friends?”

Jerome is pretty sure that Jeremiah actually stops breathing for a few seconds, and then the handkerchief slips from limp fingers as he stumbles a few steps forward, as if he cannot stand the distance between them.

“Of course, Bruce,” Jeremiah assures him, sounding almost desperate, as if the idea that Bruce thought they weren’t friends anymore would break his heart. “You are my very best friend.”

The emphasis he puts on the words makes Jerome raise his eyebrows.

“No matter how I might have transformed, that will never change. I promise.” 

Bruce doesn’t smile, but some of the sorrow in his eyes begins to fade away.

“I’m glad,” he tells Jeremiah, folding his hands together like he doesn’t know what to do with them. Unable to keep completely still but unable to reach out to Jeremiah as he might have before, even though Jeremiah was now within reach of him. He needed time to process before he could return to the sort of easy camaraderie that they’d shared. He needed to know how long Jeremiah had been changed, how much had been kept a secret from him. “I would have missed you.”

Jeremiah looks upon Bruce’s face, awestruck at his guileless honesty, and Jerome thinks—

—he’s seen a look like that before.

His mind snags.

_He’s seen a look like that before._

“I’m still here. I’m still me, I’m just better than I was before. You don’t have to miss me.”

Jerome, staring at Jeremiah’s face—unnoticed, because Jeremiah is so fixated on Bruce, as if nothing else matters—begins to wonder if he and Jeremiah are even more alike than he’d thought that they were. 

He curls an arm around Bruce’s shoulders, he tugs him closer, he turns towards him. Bruce is looking up at him, gaze curious, and Jerome puts his other hand on his waist and ducks down to kiss him. Bruce doesn’t respond at first, likely surprised at the sudden unexpectedness of starting something _right in front of Jeremiah_ , but he leans into it eventually, a hand raising to cup Jerome’s cheek.

Mine, Jerome thinks. When he casts a glance at Jeremiah he sees that his brother has averted his eyes. Trying to give them privacy? Or jealous that Jerome was obviously so much closer to Bruce than he was?


End file.
